The pull-on disposable wearing article is well known, which is formed of a substantially non-stretchable liquid-pervious topsheet, a substantially non-stretchable liquid-impervious backsheet and the liquid-absorbent panel interposed between these top- and backsheets and having the front and rear waist regions opposed to each other and the crotch region extending between these waist regions, in which transversely opposite lateral zones of the front waist region and transversely opposite lateral zones of the rear waist region are connected together so as to define a waist-hole and a pair of leg-holes.
While the commercially available pull-on disposable wearing articles are different in size depending on whether the article is for children or for adult, these articles are generally mass-produced in predetermined waist-circumferential dimensions for children and for adult and placed on the market, so the articles having a broad range of waist-circumferential dimensions are unavailable. Therefore, the conventional article of this type has necessarily been provided with means functioning to tighten the article around the wearer's torso in order to prevent the article from slipping down along the wearer's body during use of the article.
Examples of the pull-on disposable wearing article provided with such means are disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Nos. 1997-38134A and 1997-206330A. In the articles disclosed therein, a plurality of waist elastic members extending in a waist-circumferential direction are contractibly attached to front and rear waist regions and a plurality of leg elastic members extending in a leg-circumferential direction are contractibly attached to a crotch region in its transversely opposite lateral zones. The waist elastic members are spaced one from another in the longitudinal direction between a waist-hole and leg-holes. These articles make use of a contractile force of the waist elastic members to tighten the wearer's torso and to prevent the article from slipping down along the wearer's body during use of the articles.
In the conventional disposable wearing articles, one of its waist-circumferential dimension and leg-circumferential dimension depends on the other dimension because the wearer's waist-circumferential dimension is correlated with the wearer's leg-circumferential dimension.
In the wearing articles disclosed in the above-cited Application, if a contractile force of the waist elastic members is excessively high, the wearer's torso will be needlessly tightened, the wearer will experience a feeling of incompatibility and even a compression mark will remain on the wearer's body. When it is necessary for a helper to put the article on the wearer's body, the helper must broaden the contracted waist-hole against the contractile force of the waist elastic members to guide the wearer's legs through this broadened waist-hole and then the leg-holes and then pull the article upward to the waist line of the wearer. This may retard the operation of putting the article on the wearer's body and become a burden to the helper.